Previews

Carnival Games

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. The carnival is coming to your living room.

Spiffy:

More mini-games for the Wii!

Iffy:

More mini-games for the Wii.

Carnival Games is an upcoming release by Global Star Software for the Nintendo Wii that should deliver on its title -- it's a collection of mini-games based on those popularized by the traveling amusement parks. You won't be able to do what I love most about carnivals: gorging yourself on hot dogs, elephant ears and candy apples followed by making yourself sick on the rides. You will, on the other hand, be able to play all those sideshow games that always feel (and have been proven to be) rigged.

Don't Get Lost at the Carnival

This was the first chance we had to check out Carnival Games, and while the game is still far from complete, quite a few of the mini-games were playable, giving us a good sense of what to expect from the forthcoming release. The premise is easy to understand, and fits nicely into the mold that other Wii titles have set before it. It's essentially a family-friendly collection of familiar mini-games that make use of varied methods of control input via the motion-sensing Wii remote controller. So be prepared to shake, twist and swing your remote to win those big-ticket prizes. (Yes, it is possible.)

You'll start off the game with some character customization, as you create a carnival-going child that's out to win some phat lewt at the fair. There are boys and girls of various sizes, and you can customize their cartoony faces, outfits and accessories. Besides having fun playing the games, one of the primary goals is unlocking new parts for the character creation aspect, including ninja costumes, robot masks, elephant feet, and so on. Smaller prizes are three-dimensional objects that are for collecting purposes, but you'll be able to "trade up" from these smaller rewards to larger prizes, allowing you to decide what path you'll take to collecting the full set.

The mini-games are the star attractions of course, but there's more to Carnival Games as well. There will be other diversions to play around with, like a fortune teller booth that'll spit out answers (in virtual paper form) to any question you may have. There's also the classic love-meter, which wasn't included in the preview build we played, but should be fairly self-explanatory.

Some of the games we did get to get hands-on time with included a solid take on skee-ball that closely resembled Wii Sports bowling in terms of how you can line up your throwing angle. The physics and feel of this game felt quite good, and it should be plenty of fun. It also doesn't hurt that this game felt like it relied more on skill than on the sheer dumb luck that is the deciding factor in lots of the other mini-games.